Something that came up in the Pathfinder drow thread was about how elves and dwarves are extremely varied in mythology. And I thought it would make an interesting topic in its own right.

Quote from: ForgottenF on June 04, 2023, 07:59:02 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on June 04, 2023, 07:22:24 PM
On any event there are a lot of these inconsistencies of usage that make some of these terms hard to pin down, with different places using different words to refer to similar creatures, or the same word to refer to different ones. And not just "elf/alfar", but pretty much the entire vocabulary concerning "faeries" in general. Plus jinn, yokai, angels and demons are similar to "faeries/fey" as well, and probably refer the same overall category of "otherworldly (mostly) humanoid creatures", but applied to different cultures.

Yeah, I don't think it would be wholly unreasonable to refer to Nyads and Dryads as "Greek Elves", the same way that some  might refer to Selkies or the Tuatha Dé Danann as "Celtic Elves".

Agreed - and even within a single mythology, elves and dwarves vary extremely widely.

D&D categorizes monsters into identical stat blocks, which influences this - whereas some other games treat monsters differently. Original RuneQuest would have random stats and traits for monsters, for example - while most of early D&D had only random hit points for monsters. Other systems treat monsters like NPCs - they can often be unique individuals rather than standardized blocks.

Further, most D&D worlds treat creature types like genetic species - which is influenced by having standardized stat blocks but also by scientific thinking. i.e. A clan of giants in a D&D world will all have the same rough height and features. Whereas in mythology, one giant might be the size of a mountain, while his brother is the size of a house but can turn invisible.

This isn't just humanoid, either. In European folklore, dragons are typically each unique and different rather than falling into categorized strains like red/blue/black/etc.

---

There are some good reasons to standardize monsters. It's easier for GM bookkeeping, tracking challenge difficulty, and helps players make informed tactical decisions. On the other hand, I also feel like its missing out on something for monsters to be so identical.

How often and under what circumstances do other posters vary up their monsters?

I wrote a book on a similar subject. This is from Teratogenicon:

Types, species, clades, families,
individuals...

As you can see, "type" is not synonymous with species.
It is up to you to decide if a monster is unique, part of a
species of similar monsters, or something else entirely. You
can use the tables to distinguish a group of goblins from
other goblins – maybe a whole tribe has extra eyes because
their ancestors worshipped the Spider-god – or to create
a unique kind of monster that has no equal in your world.
You can also use the tables to create individuals that are
part of a larger group – there are millions goblins in the
world, but only one that spits fire, due to a mutation or
curse.
Likewise, you can do the same with all kinds of popular
monsters – maybe your world has a single legendary dragon,
or maybe it has armies of dragons clashing in the sky.
Generally, unique monsters should be powerful and
memorable, while weak monsters are somewhat similar to
one another. Nobody cares if a random goblin has no ears,
unless the creature is important for some other reason.
---

To elaborate a little bit, I think in terms of monster types, power and circumstance.

Type - dragons should always have personalities and unique traits, undead, oozes and golems not so much.

Power - if a creature is too powerful, it should often have personalities and unique traits - if it has a personality. A lich should be unique, a powerful golem or elemental might not.

Circumstances - can make a lowly NPC important. A recurring creature might deserve some detail.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/317448/Teratogenicon?src=hottest_filtered

Well, lets see...

Having a common language is a good thing for the hobby, because our brains are the CPUs running the simulation, so OOP works best to have less to change the software to be able to run/play a different game.

Meaning I disagree that having standarized monsters is a bad thing, of course neither is having 100% original ones, if that's even possible:

Giants, so you have one that's the size of a house (wouldn't that be an Ogre?) Automatons, aren't those just zombies?

Of course some flavor and mechanics have been changed but at the end of the day there's nothing new under the sun.

I read a monster manual entry, as describing the average individual.  There will be some deviation from the norm.  Exceptional individuals may, and probably do, exist.  Below par individuals may, and probably do, exist.

Quote from: jhkim on June 06, 2023, 12:57:25 PM
There are some good reasons to standardize monsters. It's easier for GM bookkeeping, tracking challenge difficulty, and helps players make informed tactical decisions. On the other hand, I also feel like its missing out on something for monsters to be so identical.

How often and under what circumstances do other posters vary up their monsters?

Quote from: GeekyBugle on June 06, 2023, 01:30:37 PM
Meaning I disagree that having standarized monsters is a bad thing, of course neither is having 100% original ones, if that's even possible

I didn't say that having standardized monsters is a bad thing. I was explicit about that above. I asked about how often and under what circumstances does one vary them.

Even in a game with only human opponents, a GM will usually use some standardization. i.e. Thugs #1 to #7 all use the same stats.

It would be possible, though, to treat monsters more like humans. i.e. Have a bunch of different stat blocks for the same type of monster just like there are different stat blocks for Spy, Knight, Guard, Cultist, etc.

Quote from: jhkim on June 06, 2023, 12:57:25 PM
How often and under what circumstances do other posters vary up their monsters?

All the time. The bestiary is just a guide. Experienced players know many/most of the standard monsters already. Tweaking or inventing monsters keeps things fresh. Is this not just another part of world building?

"GM bookkeeping" - If ease of bookkeeping is a driving factor in a game of imagination, the GM needs to take a break.

"Tracking challenge difficulty" - Fuck that, the PCs can always try to flee, parlay, or think laterally.

"Helps players make informed tactical decision" - Aka metagaming. Aw, the poo widdle players don't know the monster's special abilities ahead of time.

Quote from: jhkim on June 06, 2023, 12:57:25 PM
There are some good reasons to standardize monsters. It's easier for GM bookkeeping, tracking challenge difficulty, and helps players make informed tactical decisions. On the other hand, I also feel like its missing out on something for monsters to be so identical.

How often and under what circumstances do other posters vary up their monsters?

I've always used "Monster Manuals" and Statblocks as a baseline for my monsters, creatures and NPCs. Sometimes I just throw in the bog standard goblins for my players, other times I have groups of veteran Skirmish Goblins who are apart of a slaver kingdom of goblins. Sometimes there's a goblin who's bigger then all the other goblins due to mutations and treated as a beast of burden, so I use the ogre stat block and just remove the regeneration.

For me, it's about having interesting situations and when it comes to players making informed decisions. If said decisions requires them knowing the statblocks, that's meta gaming. As for GM book keeping, it's honestly not much effort to on the fly give a random orc a staff of fireballs and a little more HP.

Quote from: jhkim on June 06, 2023, 02:36:20 PM

Quote from: jhkim on June 06, 2023, 12:57:25 PM
There are some good reasons to standardize monsters. It's easier for GM bookkeeping, tracking challenge difficulty, and helps players make informed tactical decisions. On the other hand, I also feel like its missing out on something for monsters to be so identical.

How often and under what circumstances do other posters vary up their monsters?

Quote from: GeekyBugle on June 06, 2023, 01:30:37 PM
Meaning I disagree that having standarized monsters is a bad thing, of course neither is having 100% original ones, if that's even possible

I didn't say that having standardized monsters is a bad thing. I was explicit about that above. I asked about how often and under what circumstances does one vary them.

Even in a game with only human opponents, a GM will usually use some standardization. i.e. Thugs #1 to #7 all use the same stats.

It would be possible, though, to treat monsters more like humans. i.e. Have a bunch of different stat blocks for the same type of monster just like there are different stat blocks for Spy, Knight, Guard, Cultist, etc.

Isn't that already done (Even in D&D/OSR)? I mean you have the Ogres and then you have the Oni/Ogre Mage, same is true for Orcs and other monsters. As for Dragons aren't there already different types? and the standard stat block isn't just the average individual of that type of monster? Dragons even deviate in alignment.

What you seem to be talking about is not having ANY common stats among species/races/whatever; to completely get rid of ANY commonality and to make them all different.

Now, I might be reading stuff that's not there.

I do feel the standardization loses much of the magic. We need more random generation tables to simulate the variability of myth and folklore. When designing, we need to think of monsters as archetypes and templates rather than highly specific species.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on June 06, 2023, 03:30:12 PM
Isn't that already done (Even in D&D/OSR)? I mean you have the Ogres and then you have the Oni/Ogre Mage, same is true for Orcs and other monsters. As for Dragons aren't there already different types? and the standard stat block isn't just the average individual of that type of monster? Dragons even deviate in alignment.

What you seem to be talking about is not having ANY common stats among species/races/whatever; to completely get rid of ANY commonality and to make them all different.

Now, I might be reading stuff that's not there.

I think you've over-reading. I'm not talking about a single extreme - just about the topic in general. How much and how far to vary things.

I'd agree that dragons varying by size and age is an example of this in D&D. Another example is how in the original Module G1, young hill giants use the ogre stat block, while the hill giant chief uses the frost giant stat block. But obviously, the G1 case is stretching the model to do so.

Red dragon vs. blue dragon or ogre vs ogre magi are portrayed as different breeds. i.e. They're different monsters, so it's not the same thing. An ogre mage isn't an individual ogre who has learned magic.

---

I do think something missed in games that standardize a lot is how in myth, individual creatures varied a lot. In Greek myth, the Hydra wasn't a species - it was a unique creature. In France, the Shaggy Beast of La Ferté-Bernard was a dragon with specific characteristics, not a species of hairy dragon. The variations especially for things like fae creatures or dragons go much further than small/medium/large or young/old.

For example, in original RuneQuest, monsters had die rolls for their stats -- and they even often had randomized abilities. Broos would roll for random mutations, for example. D&D has had less variation for its monster types, with dragons and a few others as the exceptions.

Quote from: jhkim on June 06, 2023, 04:38:28 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on June 06, 2023, 03:30:12 PM
Isn't that already done (Even in D&D/OSR)? I mean you have the Ogres and then you have the Oni/Ogre Mage, same is true for Orcs and other monsters. As for Dragons aren't there already different types? and the standard stat block isn't just the average individual of that type of monster? Dragons even deviate in alignment.

What you seem to be talking about is not having ANY common stats among species/races/whatever; to completely get rid of ANY commonality and to make them all different.

Now, I might be reading stuff that's not there.

I think you've over-reading. I'm not talking about a single extreme - just about the topic in general. How much and how far to vary things.

I'd agree that dragons varying by size and age is an example of this in D&D. Another example is how in the original Module G1, young hill giants use the ogre stat block, while the hill giant chief uses the frost giant stat block. But obviously, the G1 case is stretching the model to do so.

Red dragon vs. blue dragon or ogre vs ogre magi are portrayed as different breeds. i.e. They're different monsters, so it's not the same thing. An ogre mage isn't an individual ogre who has learned magic.

---

I do think something missed in games that standardize a lot is how in myth, individual creatures varied a lot. In Greek myth, the Hydra wasn't a species - it was a unique creature. In France, the Shaggy Beast of La Ferté-Bernard was a dragon with specific characteristics, not a species of hairy dragon. The variations especially for things like fae creatures or dragons go much further than small/medium/large or young/old.

For example, in original RuneQuest, monsters had die rolls for their stats -- and they even often had randomized abilities. Broos would roll for random mutations, for example. D&D has had less variation for its monster types, with dragons and a few others as the exceptions.

Isn't that exactly what other games do according to the following paragraphs of your post?

You want it both ways, to have the Hydra as a singular individual and at the same time to have the Ogres as a race, but not really because they roll for everything.

Let's focus on intelligent monsters (because I think I know you a bit) for a moment and let's call them species (even if in Pseudo medieval settings the name makes no fucking sense):

Are all Ogres exactly the same? No, but they are alike enough as to be recognized as a species. As per the MM Ogre, Oni & Merrow are enough alike as to be considered of the same kin. http://dedpihto.narod.ru/games/Monsters1/MM00229.htm (Something I disagreee with since Ogre Mage/Oni are clearly trying to model a Japanese monster and doing a shitty job at it.

Even then and there you already had some Ogres with classes, which would solve the sameness issue you seem to have.

Now let's talk about IRL animals... There are about 10,000 species of birds, yet they all are birds, so what's the problem with green, red, bronze, etc Dragons?

Since Lions and Tigers can produce offspring (almost 100% of the time infertile) it seems reasonable to think that other species of Tiger can interbreed among themselves and maybe even produce fertile offspring. So, what's the problem with having Ogre, Ogre Mage and Marrow as the ecological diversity you seem to want?

As for the "but in mythology" thing... Well yes and no, this is only true of SOME mythological monsters not all, usually the more powerful ones, like the Hydra, Cerberus, etc. but even the greeks had Centaurs (which includes Cyprian and Lamian Centaurs), Cyclops, Griffin (at least 3), Hippocampus, Mermaids/Sirens, the Nereids (50 of them), among others.

I remember reading a blog years ago where the author explained that all hydras had actually grown from the severed heads of the original immortal Hydra. They don't reproduce but mature from severed heads that escape. Each generation is smaller than the last until they cannot produce further generations. (The smallest generation were palm-sized and used by assassins.)

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on June 06, 2023, 04:37:53 PM
I do feel the standardization loses much of the magic. We need more random generation tables to simulate the variability of myth and folklore. When designing, we need to think of monsters as archetypes and templates rather than highly specific species.

Thanks, BoxCrayonTales. I agree. Having random generation tables is even in line with a lot of old-school practice. Are there old-school games where some monsters have randomized abilities like RQ Broo?

Quote from: GeekyBugle on June 06, 2023, 05:07:08 PM
Now let's talk about IRL animals... There are about 10,000 species of birds, yet they all are birds, so what's the problem with green, red, bronze, etc Dragons?

Since Lions and Tigers can produce offspring (almost 100% of the time infertile) it seems reasonable to think that other species of Tiger can interbreed among themselves and maybe even produce fertile offspring. So, what's the problem with having Ogre, Ogre Mage and Marrow as the ecological diversity you seem to want?

It's not that I object to having dragons work exactly like real-life genetic science. That can be fun. It's that it's not the only way to do monsters.

In my current campaign, I have the standard dragon types and that's fine. But on my next campaign, I might have each dragon roll 1d10 on the Breath Weapon Type table. So individual dragons would be different from each other. Going further, I might have dragons roll on the Dragon Mobility table to see if they have wings and how many limbs they have, and roll on the Dragon Magic table to see if they have other special abilities.

For ogres, it's fine to have three subspecies as ogre types. But in a new world, I might decide that ogres are roughly as varied as humans. So I might have different stat blocks for Ogre Grunt, Ogre Shaman, Ogre Scout, Ogre Berserker, and Ogre Champion - to use as templates for typical ogre NPCs. But for specific ogres I might stat up differently, like an ogre chieftan Kagrak who has a combination of shaman-like abilities and barbarian-like abilities.

I don't know of old school games with lot of monster generators. I've tried making my own tables for individual archetypes like cockatrices/basilisks and lamias/manticores/sphinxes, but there's a lot of monsters.

I did find two for dragons tho:
https://www.reddit.com/r/DnDBehindTheScreen/comments/5k7g67/random_dragon_generator/
http://oldguardgamingaccoutrements.blogspot.com/2009/10/unexpurgated-dragon-generator.html

Quote from: jhkim on June 06, 2023, 06:45:53 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on June 06, 2023, 04:37:53 PM
I do feel the standardization loses much of the magic. We need more random generation tables to simulate the variability of myth and folklore. When designing, we need to think of monsters as archetypes and templates rather than highly specific species.

Thanks, BoxCrayonTales. I agree. Having random generation tables is even in line with a lot of old-school practice. Are there old-school games where some monsters have randomized abilities like RQ Broo?

Quote from: GeekyBugle on June 06, 2023, 05:07:08 PM
Now let's talk about IRL animals... There are about 10,000 species of birds, yet they all are birds, so what's the problem with green, red, bronze, etc Dragons?

Since Lions and Tigers can produce offspring (almost 100% of the time infertile) it seems reasonable to think that other species of Tiger can interbreed among themselves and maybe even produce fertile offspring. So, what's the problem with having Ogre, Ogre Mage and Marrow as the ecological diversity you seem to want?

It's not that I object to having dragons work exactly like real-life genetic science. That can be fun. It's that it's not the only way to do monsters.

In my current campaign, I have the standard dragon types and that's fine. But on my next campaign, I might have each dragon roll 1d10 on the Breath Weapon Type table. So individual dragons would be different from each other. Going further, I might have dragons roll on the Dragon Mobility table to see if they have wings and how many limbs they have, and roll on the Dragon Magic table to see if they have other special abilities.

For ogres, it's fine to have three subspecies as ogre types. But in a new world, I might decide that ogres are roughly as varied as humans. So I might have different stat blocks for Ogre Grunt, Ogre Shaman, Ogre Scout, Ogre Berserker, and Ogre Champion - to use as templates for typical ogre NPCs. But for specific ogres I might stat up differently, like an ogre chieftan Kagrak who has a combination of shaman-like abilities and barbarian-like abilities.

That's fine, having hundreds of grunts a few scouts a shaman or two a berserker and a champion ads spice to the battle.

There are at least 4 random generators for monsters that I know off:

The Elegant random monster generator
The Esoteric random monster generator
Life form generator (IIRC it's for SWN)
and the theratinomicom (or whatever the one by our friend Eric Diaz is called)
Plus there was one for Cthulhu like mythos/monsters/creatures.